(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gripper for a tailgate. More particularly, the present invention relates to a gripper for a tailgate that can be commonly applied to a tailgate of a plurality of vehicle kinds.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Grippers are typically used to transfer a vehicle body component from a pre-process to a post-process in a vehicle body assemble line and also can be used to fix them to be welded by a welding device. As shown in FIG. 1, such a gripper 5 also can be mounted to the front end of an arm 3 of a robot 1, and thus, is often called a robot gripper.
In FIG. 1, reference numeral “7” indicates a welding device, and reference numeral “9a” a door of a vehicle body.
There is shown in FIG. 2 a conventional gripper 5 for a tailgate. Such a conventional gripper 5 for a tailgate includes eight clamping units 13a that are disposed on a frame mounted at a front end of an arm 3 of the robot 1. Such conventional grippers are only designed for each kind of vehicle, and include a variable clamping unit 17 where five sliding cylinders 15a are applied.
However, the conventional gripper 5 for a tailgate can apply the sliding cylinder 15a as well as the variable clamping unit 17 to correspond to a plurality of vehicle kinds, where angles or heights of a regulation surface of a vehicle body component per vehicle kind are different, or a shape of the regulation surface is complicated or the regulation surface interferes with existing facilities. However, when the gripper having the variable clamping unit 17, and the sliding cylinder 15a cannot correspond, another gripper is manufactured so as to be able to correspond to a variety of vehicle components.
Creating an individual gripper for a new kind of vehicle causes the manufacturing cost to rise, and when the gripper is remodeled, the structure thereof becomes complicated.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.